


Sing A New Song

by macabre



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman means something to John Blake; it's only after Bruce Wayne leaves Gotham that he realizes John Blake means something to him too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing A New Song

By the time John Blake leaves the manor’s grounds, Bruce naturally knows everything about the young man on record. He verifies his mother’s death – caused by drunk driving, her own – and his impending hospital stay after. John was only four and in a hospital bed for three weeks. He broke four bones and suffered a mild concussion, which might explain how he had the gall to show up at the recluse’s home and accuse him of being a masked vigilante. His father died five years later, and another hospital stay is recorded, although the exact reason isn’t stated. A week after his father’s murder, John Blake was given to the boys home in Gotham where he remained most of his adolescence, minus a few stays with foster families, each lasting less than a year. 

His story matches up with what he told Bruce, but that doesn’t mean anything. Bruce already has surveillance in Blake’s department of the Gotham police department, so he goes backwards in time to see what he’s been doing. Mostly, a whole lot of nothing and desk work. Sometimes, in the corners of the frame, Gordon will walk past, and Blake will watch him eagerly. So, he’s narrowed down who his allies are – he’s not stupid, this Blake. He knows Gordon is the only one worth trusting. 

That does nothing to sooth his nerves about the discovery of his other identity. It seems almost preposterous that a young boy could know with one look. Ridiculous. Disillusioned. Unfathomable.

And yet, unquestionable. Bruce does know about the anger that consumes you, turns you into someone else entirely. Knows it and understands it well. He carried it around for years until the hearing of her parents’ murderer; he carried it in the form of a gun then, but now he carries it in the form of a bat. It matters little; the only person who could recognize it is someone who lives with the same kind of regret. 

Blake carries it with a badge; he is the man Alfred wishes Bruce could be in many respects, and for that, Bruce immediately resents him. Blake has created his own mask, and he doesn’t have to strap on military gear and face enemies one-on-one to use it. 

Bruce appears in public again, ignoring Alfred’s look of triumph. He keeps tabs on Blake and Miss Kyle, keeps an eye on Gordon in the hospital too. Gordon’s newfound faith in Blake does nothing but infuriate him more, but what can be expected when he’s turned his back on the man for the past seven years? With the problem of mobility in his leg now solved, he takes to rigorously training again. Alfred is always there, mocking him, sympathizing with him, saying whatever it is he thinks will stop him. 

He couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to. 

There were never allies for Batman besides Jim Gordon. They couldn’t be risked. Now, with Gordon still on bed rest, and Bruce dying in a prison in a country only the devil knows, he understands his mistake. Alfred was right; he should have given more to the police. Now the city burns with everyone in it. Bruce burns too. He burns more than any of them. 

When he returns, he knows it will come with a price. He makes his preparations first, then finds Selina. Blake will have to wait, but Bruce will see him before this ends. He must. Lying in his cell, in the shadows of his enemies, he finally admits that Blake is the key to everything. He understands why Alfred left him, and he won’t leave Blake empty-handed. He will give him everything he needs, and life itself. If no one else survives the bomb, Blake must. It is a hard truth, even as he asks Selina to stay for him and Fox to wait at the reactor site. 

When he does see Blake again, a surge of warmth creeps through the deep cervices of his armor, replacing all of his jealousy and anger over the man. He’s forgotten that Blake is young, and still learning. Bruce made mistakes in his early days, and they cost him. Now Blake stands alone in front of a mob with guns. He’s quick to be back on his feet when Bruce intervenes, and he doesn’t thank Batman. He knows he doesn’t have to. He takes his orders, doesn’t argue, and for that, Bruce believes in him more than ever. 

Later, when he flies over the bridge and sees the school bus, he knows that Blake is somewhere down there with it. Bruce believes again in something other than himself. This is what gives him peace. Not disappearing with Selina Kyle in the south of France. There is a part of him that loves her, but she too has her freedom now, and they both know it’s only a matter of time spent together before one goes their own way.

She leaves first. It’s after breakfast and he can see her from their balcony – just a swish of her dark hair around a corner and she’s gone. He’d like to flatter himself that if he left now, he could track her down, but he doesn’t have the energy or will to. 

The only place he can rest is Gotham. He visits his supposed resting place first, tombstones close enough to the manor that he can hear the voices of the boys inside it. It’s late – they shouldn’t be awake, and for that, Bruce smiles. Boys will be boys. He leaves lilies on his mother’s grave and kicks the engrossing ivy off his father’s. He tries not to notice the flowers on his own grave, or the strange items beneath them that would just seem eccentric to anyone visiting. There are tacks and bouncy balls among them, children’s toy left by the boys in the mansion. Bruce doesn’t dwell on it.

The hike to the entrance of the cave is too long for his sore leg tonight, so he sneaks in the backdoor of the kitchens and creeps along the new floors that don’t creak yet. No one inside will have learned its secrets like Bruce; he makes it to the study, where the piano still sits in peace, albeit not in mint condition any longer. Three keys is all it takes, then the familiar door appears.

Beneath the mansion, it’s quiet again. Bruce is home, even if he is ashamed to admit this is home in the dark. He adopted the shadows, after all, because in the shadows there is no need for masks.

He’s there too. Blake. It’s been well over a year since his departure, and Blake seems to be right on schedule. Rumors of Batman returned a few months ago. Bruce sat in a café in Amsterdam and watched the news video taken by a kid with a phone of what looked like the Bat delivering some of Mulroney’s friends, but most officials at the time considered it a hoax. Until more unusual things started happening. 

It’s almost dawn now. There’s light peeking through the falls. Blake has his back to him, crouched down near the bike. The upper half of the suit has already been removed. What should still be smooth, uninterrupted skin is not. 

“You came back.” Of course, Blake won’t be snuck up on now. He’s learned. Or maybe it’s Bruce’s leg that gives him away. He’ll never walk without a limp again, not with the combined back injury.

Bruce doesn’t say anything, just comes closer to him. Blake still hasn’t turned to him, which leaves his back in full view - he can’t hide it now. And there are scars. A lot of them. They aren’t new, but he hasn’t worn the suit long enough for scars like these, and his work in the force wouldn’t have enabled scars like that either.

When he’s close enough, he painfully leans on his leg to touch them: the raised ones, the dark lines and circles, and the faded ones. Some of them come from abundantly clear sources, such as the circles that are all the same size and color, a mottled purple. 

“Cigarette burns.” Someone used him as an ashtray. “And these two here are clearly knife wounds, but old. And these. What are these?”

Blake finally stands, his speed almost startling Bruce. He whips around, his face dangerous, no mask now, just full and bone shattering anger. “Why did you come back? Didn’t think I could do the job? Maybe I’m not worthy of it?”

Bruce barely sees the fresh bruises along his chest, one on his cheek, and more scars too, before Blake is stalking across the cave, tearing out of the rest of the armor. Bruce follows him, but slowly. 

Blake doesn’t bother to put on replacement clothes, and it is always cold down here, so Bruce walks to the supplies cabinets and pulls out a blanket. He covers Blake’s shoulders from where the man is sunken in, sitting in what used to be Bruce’s chair. Now he feels like Alfred. Now he knows Alfred’s love for him, and that he can do this for Blake. 

Gently titling the man’s face towards his, Bruce tries to find the light to expose Blake’s newest injuries. He barely touches them with the pads of his fingers, maybe expecting a wince, but Blake doesn’t move. The bruises are already two nights old, he decides. They’ll be ugly for a while, but they’re not the worst. 

“I came back for you. And I chose you because you were my only choice. The only one who could do the job.” Bruce thought he knew everything about John Blake the day he first met him, but now he sees all. There is no mask or armor to protect him from Bruce. 

“You grew up in foster care,” he says, looking at the scars. “Three homes, all between the years of 1998 and 2003. You never stayed with any one longer than a year.”

“No,” Blake croaks. “That’s not true. There was one.” He laughs, suddenly, and keeps laughing until he falls back against the wall. “There was one couple I stayed with for almost two years. And they were the meanest.”

There is anger in him down to his bones. There are flood gates too: “They had other boys before me. At least three of them. They carved their names into the wood under the bed. There were tallies too, for the days I guess, like it was fucking prison. You know what? It was prison. And hell too.”

There is nothing to be done now except fold the blanket tighter over his chest, so Bruce does that. The scars are still there – he can see one peeking out along the back of his neck – but as long as Blake thinks he can’t see them, Bruce won’t. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Blake looks at him sharply; there are a few tears. They don’t fall. “What did you expect? You knew I grew up in foster care.”

Bruce forgot that despite living through worlds of horror, he was spared some of it by Alfred and his family’s legacy. “I guess I thought I knew you. You overcame the loss of your parents in a way I never did. You triumphed.”

Bruce smiles at him hopefully; the weight of the suit is already permanently visible on Blake’s shoulders. Blake doesn’t look at him. “I’m not wrong. You are the man for the job.”

“Are you staying?” 

Bruce isn’t alive. He can’t stay here, there, or anywhere. “You know I can’t forever.”

“But for now?”

“Yes,” he says. Blake slowly looks at him. “For now I’ll stay.” 

Blake smiles, genuinely, for the first time in perhaps their whole acquaintance. Bruce means something to him, he has since childhood, and now Blake means something to Bruce too. They each carry their own secrets and regrets, but now they share the same mask. 

“What happened to the cat?”

“Cats eat bats.”

“But a robin wouldn’t.” 

Bruce laughs. It’s still dark in the cave, even though the sun is fully risen; it’s always dark here. Still, Bruce thinks no - from robins you learn to sing.


End file.
